SEOUL: South Korea and the United States fired eight surface-to-surface missiles early on Monday off South Korea’s east coast after North Korea launched a barrage of short range ballistic missiles on Sunday, a South Korea defense ministry official said.
The action is a demonstration of “the capability and readiness to carry out precision strike” against the source of North Korea’s missile launches or the command and support centers, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency cited the South Korean military as saying.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office last month, has vowed to take a tougher line against the North and agreed with US President Joe Biden at a May summit in Seoul to upgrade joint military drills and their combined deterrence posture.
The militaries of South Korea and the United States fired eight surface-to-surface missiles over a period of about 10 minutes starting 4:45 a.m. on Monday (1945 GMT Sunday) in response to the eight missiles fired by the North on Sunday, Yonhap reported.
An official from South Korea’s Defense Ministry confirmed eight Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) had been fired.
North Korea’s short-range ballistic missiles, fired toward the sea off its east coast on Sunday, were likely its largest single test and came a day after South Korea and the United States ended joint military drills.
North Korea, which is several weeks into battling its first known outbreak of COVID-19, has criticized previous joint drills as an example of Washington’s continued “hostile policies” toward Pyongyang, despite its talk of diplomacy.
North Korea has conducted a flurry of missile launches this year, from hypersonic weapons to test firing its largest intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) for the first time in nearly five years.
Washington and Seoul officials also recently warned that North Korea appeared ready to resume nuclear weapons tests for the first time since 2017.
Last month, North Korea fired three missiles including one thought to be its largest intercontinental ballistic missile, after Biden ended an Asia trip where he agreed to new measures to deter the nuclear-armed state.
The combined forces of South Korea and the United States fired missiles in response to those tests too, which the two allies say are violations of UN Security Council resolutions.
South Korea, US launch eight missiles in response to North Korea missile firings
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South Korea, US launch eight missiles in response to North Korea missile firings
- An official from South Korea’s Defense Ministry confirmed eight Army Tactical Missile Systems had been fired
First mass celebrated by new Pope Leo XIV begins: Vatican
US-born Robert Francis Prevost will deliver his much-anticipated first homily as pontiff.
China, Russia vow to strengthen cooperation on international law matters, state media reports
- China, Russia vow to strengthen cooperation on international law matters, state media reports
BEIJING: China and Russia have agreed to strengthen cooperation in matters of international law, according to a joint statement released on Friday following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
The two countries both stated their opposition to unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported the statement as saying, and will work together to defend the United Nations’ central role in international affairs.
Kenya is ‘in total disarray’: opposition candidate Martha Karua
- A spokesman for the presidency said abductions and killings were strictly a police matter
- Karua was justice minister in the mid-2000s under late president Mwai Kibaki
NAIROBI: Martha Karua, among the first to declare a run for the Kenyan presidency in 2027, told AFP the country is in “total disarray” due to corruption, police killings and economic decline.
Karua served in government in the 2000s and, as a lawyer, has lately represented jailed opposition figures in neighboring Tanzania and Uganda.
She hopes to harness the “anger and frustration” against Kenya’s President William Ruto, which spilt onto the streets last year in mass protests against tax rises and corruption.
“We are in total disarray. It’s as if our constitution has been suspended,” she told AFP in an interview in Nairobi.
“We have abductions, arbitrary arrests... extrajudicial killings... And the police and authorities fail to take responsibility.”
Rights groups say at least 60 people were killed during the protests in June and July, and at least 89 abducted since then, with 29 still missing.
Police deny involvement, but there has been limited progress in investigating the incidents.
“Ruto was a great mistake right from the start. Those of us who have worked with him and know him, knew that he would be a disaster,” said Karua.
A spokesman for the presidency said abductions and killings were strictly a police matter.
Karua ran against Ruto in the 2022 election as the vice presidential candidate on a ticket with veteran leader Raila Odinga.
She is now part of a broad grouping of opposition figures manoeuvring for the next vote in 2027.
Her first priority would be to “plug the leakages” and bring Kenya’s debt under control, she said.
Massive borrowing has left Kenya with some $85 billion in debt, forcing it to pay more in interest payments than it does on health and education.
“Fighting corruption is the only lifeline we have,” Karua told AFP.
“(Otherwise) whatever we collect, whatever we borrow, will still be lost and we will never be able to pull Kenyans out of their misery.”
Karua was justice minister in the mid-2000s under late president Mwai Kibaki.
She said that government had led a successful push against corruption, though admitted that it “did come back toward the end.”
Karua resigned from that government in 2009, accusing some of her colleagues of opposing reforms.
Now, Karua finds herself aligned with several opposition figures that have shady reputations.
When asked, she did not deny it, but said: “The task of dislodging a government that does not play by the rules is a mammoth task. We need all hands.”
She added it was up to the public to choose “the most competent and suitable” to lead the opposition into the election.
Karua worries about unrest and rigging in 2027, however. Previous elections have been marred by extreme violence.
Ruto himself was charged by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity over violence that erupted after the 2007 vote.
The case was eventually dropped for lack of evidence, with the court citing witness intimidation and political meddling.
Karua accused Ruto of hiring gangs of “thugs” for a recent rally in Nairobi — to “sort out anybody who appears to either boo or jeer” — which led to huge numbers of muggings and violent attacks on passers-by.
“I know it will get worse. They will use public coffers at the expense of vital services like health, education and security,” she said.
The presidency spokesman said Ruto “never hires or pays people to attend his public meetings.”
“Martha Karua and her team created a similar lie in the run up to the last election,” the spokesman said. “They lost it because they believed in their own lies. They are headed for a similar and more resounding defeat.”
But Karua claimed the president will make the upcoming election “nasty.”
“The only way we can overcome Ruto’s manipulation of the electoral system is to have a flood of votes, overwhelming numbers which no amount of manipulation can work on,” she said.
After Spain’s blackout, questions about renewable energy are back
- The European Union’s fourth-largest economy generated 56 percent of its electricity last year from renewables
- Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has stressed that his government would not deviate from its energy transition plans
MADRID: The massive power outage that hit the Iberian peninsula on April 28 has reignited a debate in Spain over the country’s plan to phase out its nuclear reactors as it generates more power with renewable energy.
As people wait for answers about what caused the historic power cut, which abruptly disrupted tens of millions of lives, some are questioning the wisdom of decommissioning nuclear reactors that provide a stable, if controversial, form of energy compared to renewables, whose output can be intermittent.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has rejected such criticism, asking for patience while the government investigates what caused the grid’s disconnection. He said that his government would not “deviate a single millimeter” from its energy transition plans.
Here’s what to know about the energy debate:
What is nuclear power and why is it controversial?
Nuclear power is a zero-carbon energy source formed from nuclear fission, when the nuclei of atoms are split into two or several parts, releasing energy.
It accounts for about 10 percent of electricity generation worldwide, according to the International Energy Association.
Many countries consider nuclear power critical to reaching their net-zero goals. But while nuclear reactors do not emit planet-warming greenhouse gases like gas- or coal-fired power plants, they produce radioactive waste that even advanced economies have struggled to dispose.
Why does Spain want to decommission its nuclear reactors?
Spain generated nearly 57 percent of its electricity in 2024 from renewable energy sources like wind, hydropower and solar, according to Red Eléctrica, the country’s grid operator. About 20 percent came from nuclear power plants.
In 2019, Sánchez’s government approved a plan to decommission the country’s remaining nuclear reactors between 2027 and 2035 as it expands its share of renewable energy even further. The country aims to generate 81 percent of its electricity by 2030 from renewable sources.
Sánchez on Wednesday said that the four nuclear facilities that were online the day of the blackout did not help re-power the grid.
Batteries and other methods help regulate changes in electricity supply from wind and solar.
Why is Spain’s renewables push being questioned now?
While the cause of the sudden outage on April 28 is still unknown, the event has raised questions about the technical challenges facing electricity grids running on high levels of solar and wind.
Solar and wind provided roughly 70 percent of the electricity on the grid moments before Spain lost 15 gigawatts of electricity — about 60 percent of its supply — in just five seconds.
Electricity grids were designed for a different era, according to Gilles Thonet, deputy secretary general of the International Electrotechnical Commission, an industry group.
“Traditionally, power flowed in one direction: from large coal, gas or nuclear plants to homes and businesses,” Thonet said. “These plants provided not only electricity, but also stability. Their spinning turbines acted like shock absorbers, smoothing out fluctuations in supply and demand.”
In the days following the blackout, Google searches in Spain for “nuclear” spiked, according to data from Google Trends.
Spain’s nuclear lobby group Foro Nuclear said this week that the government should rethink its plan to decommission its nuclear reactors after the outage. Ignacio Araluce, its president, said the nuclear plants online before the outage “provide firmness and stability.”
Would more nuclear power have prevented a blackout?
Others say it is too soon to draw conclusions about what role nuclear energy should play.
“We do not know the cause of the oscillations,” said Pedro Fresco, director general of Avaesen, an association of renewable energy and clean technology firms in Valencia. “Therefore, we do not know what would have allowed them to be controlled.”
Spain’s grid operator last week narrowed down the source of the outage to two separate incidents in which substations in southwestern Spain failed.
Environment Minister Sara Aagesen said earlier this week that the grid had initially withstood another power generation outage in southern Spain 19 seconds before the blackout.
Sánchez in his speech to Parliament said there was “no empirical evidence” to show that more nuclear power on the grid could have prevented a blackout or allowed the country to get back online faster. In fact, the four nuclear facilities online on April 28 before the blackout were taken offline after the outage as part of emergency protocol to avoid overheating.
He said that nuclear energy “has not been shown to be an effective solution in situations like what we experienced on April 28,” and called the debate surrounding his government’s nuclear phase-out plan “a gigantic manipulation.”
Gas and hydropower, as well as electricity transfers from Morocco and France, were used to get the country’s grid back online.
Russia’s Victory Day parade begins, marking the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany
- The two most important guests this year are China’s Xi Jinping and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
- The period between 1939 and 1941, when the Soviet Union had a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, is glossed over in official history books
MOSCOW: Russia marked the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II with a massive military parade on Red Square on Friday attended by President Vladimir Putin and a slew of foreign leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Victory Day, which is celebrated in Russia on May 9, is the country’s most important secular holiday. A Red Square parade and other ceremonies underline Moscow’s efforts to project its global power and cement the alliances it has forged while seeking a counterbalance to the West amid the conflict Ukraine that has dragged into a fourth year.
World War II is a rare event in the nation’s divisive history under Communist rule that is revered by all political groups, and the Kremlin has used that sentiment to encourage national pride and underline Russia’s position as a global power.
The Soviet Union lost a staggering 27 million people in what it calls the Great Patriotic War in 1941-45, an enormous sacrifice that left a deep scar in the national psyche.
Festivities this year were overshadowed by Ukrainian drone attacks targeting Moscow and severe disruptions at the capital’s airports.
Russian flag carrier Aeroflot on Wednesday morning canceled more than 100 flights to and from Moscow, and delayed over 140 others as the military were repelling repeated Ukrainian drone attacks on the capital.
Russian authorities have tightened security ahead of the parade and cellphone internet outages have been reported amid electronic countermeasures aimed at foiling more potential drone attacks.
Putin has declared a unilateral 72-hour ceasefire starting Wednesday to coincide with the Victory Day celebrations. Moscow has been reluctant to accept a U.S.-proposed 30-day truce that Ukraine has accepted, linking it to a halt in Western arms supplies to Ukraine and Kyiv’s mobilization effort, conditions Ukraine and its Western allies have rejected.
